How Obama Might OK Pipeline

One of President Barack Obama's trickiest political tasks early in his second term has nothing to do with taxes, budget or the debt ceiling. Rather, it will be his decision this spring on whether to give the go-ahead to the Keystone XL pipeline.

Keystone XL—the proposed new spur of a transcontinental pipeline that would carry heavy crude oil from Canada to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast—was splitting Mr. Obama's Democratic...